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List Price: $24.95 | | Publisher: Cumberland House Publishing
Salesrank: 109054
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| Our Price: $15.65 |
| Used Price: $6.31 |
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| Media: Hardcover |
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Editorial Review:
While many have heard the music of Johnny Cash, few know the whole story behind his extraordinary career and the stories of those who helped him attain his success. Marshall Grant, Cash's long-time bassist and one of the founding members of Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two, chronicles their rise to fame from humble beginnings to world renown.
The genesis for I Was There When It Happened was a rousing speech by Grant during the nationally televised memorial service for Johnny Cash. After receiving multiple standing ovations, Grant was approached by several people, including former Vice President Albert Gore Jr., to consider writing a book. The result is a touching, revealing, and inspiring memoir about the Man in Black.
Beginning with Grant and guitarist Luther Perkins's initial introductions to Johnny Cash and the jam sessions that followed, readers will marvel at how their musical inabilities drove these three men to musical greatness. From Grant's humorous story of placing adhesive tape on his upright bass to learn the notes prior to landing their Sun Records recording contract and witnessing Johnny write "I Walk the Line," to his experience of playing with Cash at Folsom Prison, readers are taken backstage into Cash's inner circle.
"Johnny Cash was the greatest human being to ever walk the face of the earth," states Marshall Grant. While Grant and Cash experienced remarkable success in their careers, the most profound success was their enduring friendship until Cash's dying day. Through the good and the bad—and there was plenty of both—Marshall Grant shares how John and he "walked the line" for each other and those around them. I Was There When It Happened is a testimony to friendship and to the unique qualities behind one of the most respected and beloved entertainers of all time.
I Was There When It Happened: My Life with Johnny Cash Reviews:
I peed next to W.S. FLUKE HOLLAND. 
2007-11-22 - GET THIS BOOK.This book goes right up there with Turners book and Streissgut.As nice as cashs autobiographies are they are fiction pure fiction.I love cash since 1964.but as a kid I thought he was the least pr artist he was really a big artist built by pr.
Where Grant goes to far saying he was such a king maker he was responsible for Cash being alive for all those years and did make some people stars.He manage the Statler bros.and Carl Perkins until his death.because of Cash Grant and perkins kept in touch by distance.
I also reccommend Cashs sons book on his mom.
One night at Toads place in New Haven Ct. concert I was peeing and in walked Cashs drummer W.S. Fluke Holland and as I finished I said :Fluke you even piss on the beat. He laughed . Grant you were the beat behind Cash the boom to Luther Perkins chicka.
Fun read 
2007-10-02 - Not great literature, and definitely the author writes probably a bit too much about himself, especially his contributions to making J. Cash the success he was, but a fun read. A lot of inside kind of info. Johnny Cash fans will really enjoy the book. Marshall Grant will be at the Johnny Cash Flower Picking Festival in Starkville, Mississippi on November 3 to discuss his book.
HUH? 
2007-10-02 - I've known Marshall all my life.
I love him and Etta very much.
I enjoyed part of the book. I do think he should have stuck with what he KNEW though.
After he "left" Dad's organization, the story should have picked up after he and Dad started speaking again.
The second hand information from "other employees and people close to Dad" was not fact. It was gossip, and I was very surprised at the "information" he was fed from people that were working for Dad at the time!
I was not only working for Dad at the time, but around him all the time. I found myself shocked at some of the
things Marshall was told. I'm sad that people Dad trusted in his office, home and on the road were so back stabbing.
I always knew it, but this book made me cry finding out what some of Dad's "loyal employees" were telling former employees.
Love to Marshall and Etta though...Kathy
He WAS there when it happened! 
2007-09-28 - I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The account of the Sun Records era and the origin of the Johnny Cash sound was well written and, despite what other reviewers have stated, consistent with other written accounts.
Johnny Cash's drug use during the 1960s was well documented. There is no question in my mind that Marshall Grant, June Carter, and Vivian Cash all loved Cash and wanted to free him from the drug demons that threatened to destroy him.
For most of the 1960s, the drug use transcended Cash's recording and performing career. Cash cleaned up his life (with, apparently, a few relapses), and his career underwent a resurgence. Sadly, in the early 1980's the drugs seemed to re-emerge as an issue and strain a lot of key relationships in his life. Marshall Grant was one of the casualties of that era.
To his credit, Grant chose not to write a tell-all book as retribution while Cash was alive. It was also good to hear that Cash and Grant were able to reconcile and resume their friendship in the end.
I did not consider the book self-serving, as other reviewers have stated. It seemed to me to be a series of anecdotes from a friend. It was an easy read and I would recommend it highly as a biography of Cash.
From the inside
2007-08-17 - For all Cash fans. We forget that we all have human faults when someone dies. Grant has exposed Johnny's demons that exist in all of us. This, in no way, makes Cash less a great human being but shows the world and Johnny's fans that he had many of the same weaknesses we all do. You will not regreat reading. I attended a show in 1964 when Cash did not appear and Tex Ritter played for over an hour vs. his 20 minute set and then announced that Cash was "ill" and would not be appearing. Johnny came back a month later and our original tickets were honored for a second show that was terrific!
